By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:22pm
Last Thursday we moved half a step closer to legislation requiring police to get a warrant before viewing personal email or other private electronic communications, such as documents and photos stored in the cloud (with Google, Yahoo or any other provider). For more background on the amendment see here; for explanation of why it’s a half a step and what comes next please keep reading.
By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:48pm
The Propellerheads may have been talking about fashion trends when they sang that "to me it seems quite clear that it's all just a little bit of history repeating." But that sentiment rings loud and true today when talking about the privacy-busting cybersecurity bill CISPA.
Leaders of the House Intel Committee reintroduced CISPA with the same privacy flaws as last year. While they suggested at its unveiling that they worked with the privacy community and addressed our concerns, they didn't. This is the same bill, with the same problems.
By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:27pm
Privacy protection, and the debate about whether to house information-sharing programs in a civilian or military agency, dominated three congressional hearings on cybersecurity this week.
In separate hearings Tuesday in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Armed Services Committee, leaders of the intelligence community called cyberattacks the greatest threat to the U.S. at this time—but admitted that the kinds of catastrophic attacks imagined by reporters and cyber experts were only a "remote" possibility in the near future.
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:35pm
Last week, the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for its failure to ensure proper oversight over state and local “fusion centers.” Shortly thereafter, the committee issued a statement denouncing the report and lauding fusion centers as playing a “significant role in many recent terrorism cases.”
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:34pm
So, Wednesday, I’ll be participating in an “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA, discussion on Reddit. It amazes me that folks are even interested, but the topic will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”).
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:16pm
Although the conflict between government classification rules and practices and the First Amendment rights necessary to promote a free and open society is nothing new, recent developments may indicate an alarming shift away from basic First Amendment principles.
A recent article by the Washington Post showed surveillance of federal employees has been stepped up government-wide. According to the article, last year the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began spying on its scientists, claiming to be looking for the unauthorized sharing of trade secrets. The scientists, however, claim they were being targeted for blowing the whistle on an unethical review process. According the story, such invasive surveillance in the name of national security is spreading. The spyware sold by one software company, SpectorSoft--which claims to have clients in dozens of federal agencies--can do far more than just spy on email. According to the Post, “It could be programmed to intercept a tweet or Facebook post. It could snap screen shots of their computers. It could even track an employee’s keystrokes, retrieve files from hard drives or search for keywords.”
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:28pm
No cyber news is usually good news, but today is an exception. Senators have unveiled significant privacy amendments that will be incorporated into S. 2105, the Cybersecurity Act. Authored by Sens. Lieberman, Feinstein, Rockefeller and Collins, the bill provides comprehensive cybersecurity reform, including a new ‘information sharing’ program that permits companies to share internet info with each other and the government.
CISPA is a dangerously overbroad bill that would allow companies to share our private and sensitive information with the government without a warrant and without proper oversight.
By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:38pm
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debating the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, authored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.). In the name of cybersecurity, the legislation threatens to blow a hole through every privacy law on the books and allow companies to share customers' private information with the US military. It's not pretty.
